Alcohols are industrially produced from direct hydration of alkenes, such as ethylene, or from cracking of appropriate fractions of distilled (or fractionated) crude oil. While demands for alcohols, and especially for ethanol, continue to increase, crude oil reserves continue to be depleted. Moreover, the processes of alkene hydration and fractionation and cracking of crude oil are themselves energy intensive processes.
There remains a need therefore, for a method of producing alcohols from more readily available starting materials and for a process which does not require the energy input necessary for current industrial alcohol production.